AIBU to feel fed up about how much summer holidays cost?

[jumpinthecoolpool]

Summer is nearly over thank god and despite trying we’ve spent an absolute fortune. Free things never actually are, there’s always a catch. I got fooled by a kids eat for £1 the other day and it still cost £40 for two adult meals and an hour in a tiny soft play my eldest was bored with after ten minutes.

Has anybody managed not to haemorrhage money? Have had some subtle criticisms from DH and I’m tired of it.

That bouncy castle has made me cross OP! I think it’s really cruel of businesses to sneakily exploit children and their parents with add-ons that weren't advertised to begin with. If it had been advertised as “pebble painting £3 and bouncy castle £5” in advance that’s fair enough, but to spring the bouncy castle on you at the end - they absolutely knew what they were doing 😠

With Ice Cream, my mum used to set expectations and prepare us kids in advance that if there was an ice cream or candy floss van, we wouldn’t be buying any. She also used to buy strawberry cornettos (a treat) from the shop and promise us one of those when we got home. So when we saw the van / cafe, her reply was “let’s hurry home and get those cornettos”. It worked with us 🤷‍♀️

Very small children can be left in a safe room with toys. If you sit and watch them and don't direct play, they get very creative. It's fascinating. Same if you give them paper and paint, or let them play in a garden or park. You can supervise, but you don't need to "entertain".
Allow children to self direct with play.
I think parents controlling every activity for weeks on end isn't necessary.

I think we have done well this year (9 weeks off where we are)

But you’re right, lots of things cost that didn’t used to just 5 years ago. For example, we have about 8 playgrounds within 20 mins drive. 5 years ago when my Ds was a baby every single one was free parking, now only the smallest 1 has free parking. The rest are around €2 per hour. We have to drive and park in these places to do free activities like ride bike, swim in lake etc as not possible from house. So every single free morning I take Ds to park or cycling or swim costs around €4-6 min just parking. Other places like farms/ tree climbing / castles etc the parking is even more. Over a week in summer we easily spend €30+ on parking alone.

Also like you say half the parks now have fees. Ride on cars, trampolines, food for goats, ice creams, etc.. I don’t let him have every time, but I don’t want to spend life saying no always.

Our biggest saving is annual pass. Locally it’s less than €100 and valid April- Nov at loads of places. So we use for 95% main trips. Includes loads. So maybe see what annual passes near you exist. As they also cover every weekend, afternoon, other school holidays

I agree with this and also you should set a reasonable budget per week as a family and the person with the kids each day decides how it's spent.

If you e.g. compare what you spent in June with what you spent in August and divide it by 4, that'll give you a baseline. Bet it's nothing like what you estimated the childcare at.

You’ve carried 15 bottles around?!

Why not a refillable water bottle each?! Everywhere provides tap water these days.

And with 5 kids you’ve either got one small enough for a buggy or one big enough to carry a backpack and their own drink bottle. Or both.

Ahh, the long distant memories of childcare olympics for the summer holidays. I was lucky that my sister had similar issues so we used to combine our holidays to cover a huge chunk of the summer. My DH would also take a week off and so would her DH. All in all we never paid for any childcare.

But the costs were always a bit of an issue from our side. If we had the children it was always free visit to the park and a picnic. Football on the green. Paddling pool in the garden type stuff. If we had them for a week i would say we maybe did one pre arranged activity that we paid for at most. The kids learnt to be out in the fresh air. They learned to play and they also learned to use their imagination.

Contrast that with time at my sisters. Every single day would be £20-30 for this that and the other. It got to the point it would be easier for us to just look after our own and save the money. A play centre, a trip to the cinema, lunch etc etc. There are only so many times a child wants to go to a soft play centre and let mum have a coffee without them being bored or causing trouble to get some attention.

The summer holidays are as expensive or cheap as you want to make it.

No buses where you live?

Not right away they won’t, but if you leave them alone they will learn to! They might cry and be clingy to begin with but you have to work through that so that they learn - like any new skill, as you will know as a teacher. Honestly, I promise.

You’ll need to feed them with some ideas or challenges (build a palace / invest a superhero game / play hide and seek) but then let them go away and tell them you’ll be back in 5 minutes to see how they’re getting on. The 5 year old especially will understand this.

It's worth getting National Trust family membership. Most of them have trails and "hunts" laid on for the kids on holidays, you can take drinks and a picnic and then there's the woodland walks and park walks at most of these places as well. You can have a really good day out for the price of your annual membership and the petrol to get there. Parking is free for members.

Yes but not when they are young. dd is 12 now, so it's been expensive. Gone are the days of a drink or ice cream down the park. Lunch plus cinema or Ice Skating soon adds up. We live in a rural area, so add travel costs on too.

To be fair having a trampoline in your garden costs money aswell. Trampolines aren’t free and neither is their rent or energy cost so they need to charge enough to cover.

I do agree that parking fees are unfair in parks etc. Buses also cost money.

@Tessasanderson - erm sure they exist in the county, but not to any where near my house. We live rural, at the top of a hill. It’s a 2km steep climb up an actual mountain road to my house. A road with no paths. We can’t walk that in summer heat with small child ( not uk so it’s hot). The nearest bus stop, 2km away only runs three times a day also, and nothing on weekends. So no, we don’t use a Bus.

I agree with you. It's expensive. It really depends where you live I think. And if you have heavily discounted tickets for big days out ( we don't). Or if you have family around who can look after your kids and do nice thkngs with them ( we don't) etc etc....

Just going to our local swimming pool cost me £14 yesterday and that's with one child not paying as he's taking swimming lessons there! When you add all of these costs up, it can quickly spiral!

Bowling, the cinema, trampoline parks etc...All expensive. Forget about theme parks and big days out!

Right now, my money is haemorrhaging steadily because of buying bew bags, uniform bits , a new blazer, trainers and school shoes as well as new shin pads and gum shields etc...

It is expensive.

Buses are only any good if they go where you want to go! I forced myself to learn to drive at 40 as we couldn’t get anywhere.

Hardly any NT properties in my part of the world. I did EH one year but had to spend hours and hours driving to and from to get use out of it.

Honestly, fairly easily because it's a priority! Also because the weather made it much easier this year to just be outside loads. At one point we set up an obstacle course in the garden which ended in the paddling pool and was hillarious to sit and watch! We've also done lots of library trips, garden centre trips, playdates, baking, crafts etc.

DC9 and 5 and we've done

1. Swimming - bus travel £3 and tickets. Total = £15
2. Shopping for school shoes costs £££ but included a few hours at the mall summer beach and playing in the lego shop on the play tables! Total = £0
3. Trip to the park and animal playground. Entry free, took our own duck food and human foo. Parking was £6 and ice creams £5. Total = £11
4. Cinema to see an older film using the Cineworld £2 Family promotion plus sweets from the supermarket and drinks from home. Total = £7
5. Cinema to see new film (paw patrol!) plus sweets from the supermarket and drinks from home. Total = £18
6. Foraging walk at our local national trust place (entry to woodland grounds is free). We took a picnic, nets, baskets, sketchpads and pencils etc and used their kids trail maps. Just had to pay for parking. Total cost = £5
7. 9yo and I went to the treehouse boardgame cafe one afternoon, which was £7.50 to play and a cuppa for me and milkshake for him. Total = £14
8. We all went to the natural science bit of our museum where the kids can look at insects and dress up etc. Took a picnic and made a day of it. Entry free but we donated £5 and the kids spent their pocket money/birthday money in the gift shop. Total = £5
9. We had our village fete one weekend. That was a bit more spenny as we got carried away but it all goes to support the local community groups and we got to see all our neighbours and friends. Stalls, games and snacks probably set us back total = £40
10. We went on a family bike/scooter ride. Parking was free and meant we could keep the car full of snacks/blankets to sit on/books/ bird seed etc. Did share pizzas from the van at the end of the day. Total = £25
11. Our city centre has a 'seaside' where we just let the kids get totally soaked! Cost us ice creams and bus fare. total = £10
12. We did an art session in the woods which the kids LOVED. That was about £20 though and just had to sit and watch!
13. "tennis" in the park. I write tennis as it was an absolute shit show but we came up with our version which was a cross between tennis and dodgeball... courts are free at the park and I packed snacks. There was also some icecreams after while we lay on the grass and they played poohsticks. Total = £5
14. We did a "camping" trip overnight in a friends garden with them and their kids too. Cost me a bottle of wine, the makings for smoores and I took the salads/bread for the bbq. Kids watched a film and generally had a riot giggling into the night. Adults had a glass of wine and got to catch up. So maybe about £25 for us and great fun.

So all of that is ~£200 which for six weeks I'm very happy with. Also had a family holiday at the seaside for a week which was obviously an additional cost.

Yes the older ones are old enough to carry their own but then we all have bags and they complain about it being uncomfortable and all the rest of it so for ease, I did the carrying. I know I’m too soft. As for refill points, I saw lots in London but didn’t see any anywhere else we’ve been.

I think if you live somewhere as remote as that, you're going to have to use your own transport.

Yes, because no one forces you to go out to eat, and it's your own responsibility to check the prices before you sit down yo eat. You could have easily bought a few items in the supermarket and had a picnic. Which is much more fun in the summer anyway. Summer holiday activities don't have to cost a lot, or anything.

I don't understand the obsession with having to do "things" constantly. When I was a kid our parents let us work out for ourselves what to do with our time. We still managed to have great summers without constant paid or free activities.

Mine are teens and twenties now and I agree holidays are an expensive time. One thing that has helped over the years though is getting the kids into walking - look at an OS map of your local area and you will probably find paths all over the place. By mid teens ours were quite into trying to notch up the miles and when you're out in the middle of nowhere, you can't spend money. We do sometimes have to splash the cash on a pub lunch at the end of a walk to keep them motivated though so it's not a complete solution.

To those saying that buses take ages - yes they often do and it's a great advantage as it fills the day up with a thrilling and educational bus ride (though when mine were little buses weren't that cheap and I cried real tears when I once got no change out of a twenty for one short return bus ride)

@PatriciaRocks - I agree. I don’t mind driving. I don’t mind paying for parking. For us it’s ok, and affordable, and just part of living where we do. I’m just agreeing with OP that yes many FREE things do cost people
in parking/ or bus fares/ or other costs so I can see that they still add up over a long 6-9week summer

This, I haven’t spent much because we haven’t done much and they’re fine. Most things that cost money aren’t worth it, either overpriced or the kids don’t enjoy it. Social media is bad for making us feel like we need to do this stuff though but I ignore it

Yes, I agree. As you live very remotely, don't you find that your DC have plenty of space and opportunities, without going to play centres or do expensive activities?

Sometimes the most expensive activities are the crappest and most short lived. The weird quirky spontaneous things can end up the most fun.

I do think that there is a modern obsession with keeping kids entertained.

I don’t recall my mum and dad ever entertaining us as kids.

Some of my happiest childhood memories were going for a drive up the country lanes with my dad buying a sausage roll and pulling over in a lay by to look at some cows in a field, long walks with the dog in all weathers, going to buy a bag of chips on a warm summer evening, pond dipping in the country park.

@PatriciaRocks - it’s all hills. So sure we hike. But my 6 year old can’t ride his bikes where it’s so steep and likes playgrounds to meet other children. There’s also a lake to swim at. So no we wouldn’t just stay home every day. We do some days, but he’s off end June-mid Sept.